Geocode location data

Geographic data that describes a location must be geocoded in order to place it on a map. Usually the description is an address, complete with city, state, zipcode or postcode all combined in one column. Geocoding in Fusion Tables is similar to pasting a description of a location into Google Maps.

Latitude, longitude pairs and KML are already mappable and do not need to be geocoded.

How do I geocode my data in Fusion Tables?

A yellow highlight indicates ungeocoded location data. For example, you'll see this highlight appear on a column with addresses when you've just changed the column's type from Text to Location.

Fusion Tables automatically begins geocoding when you visualize the location on a map.

In the New look, click on an existing Map or create a new one: + > Add a map

In Classic, choose Visualize > Map.

You can also manually trigger geocoding:

Choose File > Geocode.

Troubleshooting

Why can't I geocode a map I'm viewing?
Since the geocodes are saved with the table, you must have edit permissions on the table in order to use the geocoding feature.

Why didn't everything geocode?

There are daily limits on free geocodes. Fusion Tables can only geocode up to the limit.

If you have a very large data set, you'll need to manually geocode repeatedly over a series of days until all your data is entirely geocoded. The ungeocoded rows will be highlighted in yellow.

How do I tell which rows haven't geocoded?

Location descriptions that failed to geocode are shown in the table with a yellow highlight.

Why was the wrong location column geocoded?

By default, if you have more than one location column, Fusion Tables uses the most specific one when mapping.

To use a different location column for mapping, choose it from the "Location" dropdown menu in the map's top left corner in classic, or from Tools > SelectLocation in the new look.

You can also go into the table and change all columns you don't want to use as locations to type Text so that Fusion Tables doesn't attempt to map them.

Why is my data scattered all over the place?
By default, the map begins geocoding the left-most column. If this is only part of an address (just the street location or just the city, for example) the points may appear all over the map. See "Combine multi-column locations."